1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an air purifier.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is known that ultraviolet ("UV") light sterilizes DNA so that biological material (such as viruses, bacteria, molds, yeasts, and pollens) exposed to UV light either dies or cannot reproduce. This property of UV light has been utilized to sterilize air in a building by simply placing UV lamps in the building's air ducts. One drawback with this approach is that biological material may not be exposed to UV light for a sufficient time to be sterilized. To address this drawback, it is known to utilize a porous air filter end mount a UV light for reciprocating movement across a face of the filter. In operation, a fan draws air through the filter resulting in biological material becoming trapped in the filter. The irradiation of the filter with the reciprocating UV light acts to kill this trapped biological material. However some biological material, namely viruses, readily pass through porous filters and would not, therefore, be sterilized with the combination of a porous filter in conjunction with a UV lamp. Furthermore, UV light degrades a porous filter requiring frequent replacement of same.
Ozone is a known biocide. However, due to its dangers to humans, it has not found wide application in killing bacteria and the like in air.
The present invention seeks to overcome drawbacks of the known prior art.